This week I learned how to factor by grouping, although Ms. Burton hasn’t showed us how to do it my brother forced me to.

First step is to multiply the first and last term together which is -30 and you have to find out which two numbers add up to -30.

Which turned out to be 2 and -15.

Second step is to rewrite the whole trinomial again but the middle term is the two numbers.

Third step is you have to find the greatest common factor (GCF) of the first two terms. In this case the first two would be 6x^2 and 2x. The GCF would be 2x, so (3x+1) is all that’s left. Then you have to do the same thing for the last two terms, so you find the GCF of -15x and -5, which is -5 so you are left with (3x+1).

Tip: You will know that you did it right if you see both terms match.

Final step is to write the term that was in your last step and it doesn’t matter which one because it should be the same and write GCF together and you should be done!